Giveaway 22-08-08

With todays giveaway, I want to break from the trend of the first few a little. Listen and you'll see why. This one is called Stomp and it was a piece I originally did for a remix of a song called "Bring It On" (which i also produced) for an Abj based rapper called Icecold in 2005. And believe you me, this dude was simply ice cold on the mic. Top notch battle rapper is what he was. Unfortunately, his debut album sank in the quagmire that is an upstart record label & hasn't seen the light of day.

At the moment, I only have the instrumental for that song but I'll rummage about a bit & see if i can find the full, recorded version so y'all can understand what I'm talking about as far as the young man's skill.

BigEL - Stomp (Originally made for Icecold)

As always, your comment would be greatly appreciated.

Giveaway 21-08-08

Ok, whats good? I've got more from my archives for your insatiable hip hop appetites. Today there are two beats up for grabs. Continuing with the hip hop/soul theme, I bring you

BigEL - Hugh's da Man III

part of a three beat set based around the same sample. I do that every once in a while. On this, I sampled a very popular and well respected African horn blower. See if you can figure out who he is.

Up next,

BigEL - I Found My Soul

This ones just absolutely chilled out, languid Sunday afternoon stuff. Put them to good use y'all.

Enjoy and keep the comments coming y'all.

Manoozy! Thanks for the love, homey. Let me know if you've got anything in mind, man. I'll see what I can do.

Giveaway 20-08-2008

Here's the second of the giveaways. This is another beat that is a favourite of mine & that I've had for about six months now. I made this using a sample I had had for a while & had listened to over and over again but had not found the inspiration to work. And in the way these things work, I listen one particular day, and it all just comes flowing out. So here it is

BigEL - Serenade Me Like Its '73

Once again, the comments would be very greatly appreciated.

Peace!!

Giveaway!

Ok, now's the time all you perpetually hungry MC's have been waiting for. Todays the day I start the beat giveaways. I have tons of beats spanning the last half decade just lying on my hard drive, suffering from every good song's worst nightmare; an uninspired artist. So, heres the deal, I'll run through them from time to time and I'll pick the best of them and put them up here with the hope that some or your muses are smiling on you the day you listen and you can turn them from beats to songs or then again, you can simply put them on your playlist & bob ya head.

Listen Up!
Feel free to use them however you want so long as they are used on artistes projects & not on commercials. If you intend to use any of the works listed here on any other sort of project, please drop a comment requesting permission first.

Back to the beat.

We've Just Begun

This is the first of the beats. We've Just Begun is a year old boom bap number with a touch of that good old soul (don't just ask me what the vocals are saying. It aint the point). I won't tell you what the sample is but I'll post my sampling technique here soon enough for you knob tweakers. The beat was made (as most of them are) completely in FL Studio 7.

Don't forget to drop a comment.

One!

The Birth of Redemption

Ok, I figure the best way to get this started is to introduce my sound, so over the next few weeks I'll be posting links to a few of the songs I've worked on as well as beats that I think would do a good job of breaking the ice. They're hosted on limelinx.com so feel free to download them for your personal use. I only ask that you come back & post a comment on what exactly you think about whatever piece you've listened to.

In the weeks after that, I'll take the huge risk of commenting on other peoples work & saying EXACTLY what i think. I wont restrict myself to any particular genre, I'll just run my mouth about songs that i think are worth a comment (good or bad) so keep that browser pointed in this direction.

So, we start things off with one of my favourite beats I ever made. The song is called Redemption & on the vocals we have my homeboy Spud spitting & he's accompanied by Seun. I sampled some old Jimmy Cliff on that (I dare you crate diggers to tell me the song).

Spud - Redemption ft. Seun


I made this beat in my last year on school. I was just coming out a period when I was just swamped with work & couldn't even make out time to make a beat. At the first chance i got, i sat down at my pc and fired up FL Studio. A few hundred mouse clicks and forty minutes later, Redemption was playin out of my cheap hi fi speaker. We recorded the song a few weeks later at G-Lynx's famed Orisuna Basement Studios (where Modo's Malcolm IX was partially crafted) using Steinberg's Nuendo.

Speak your piece.

Intro

Ok, quick and straight to the point.

My name is BigEL. I'm also called EL the Arkitekt or just EL. I'm a music producer from Abuja, Nigeria & this blog is about that; making music.

Hip hop is my favoured style but i dabble in a lot of other forms. Predominantly Rock & RnB/Soul.
This blog exists to give other producers on these shores, especially those new to the game, access to information they'd find helpful. I'll put up links to valuable resources i come across & I'll try to answer quesitons and create step by step tutorials for the software that I am familiar with & that i know that beatmakers on this side of the world prefer.

Now some might ask, what give me the right to put this blog up? Well I've been doing this for a while now. At least 6 yrs. I've worked with a lot of different software in that time. Everything from the "toys" (Fruityloops or rather FL Studio) to the "industry standards". I've crafted beats for artistes from Modenine to 5 Mics to Qru to Seun (Abj cats know who i'm talkin about).

So, post your comments & requests & lets see of we can get something going up in here.